Cop Killer
by Mage of the Heart
Summary: Gene's thoughts as he calls out to Bolly in her coma, as requested by RhosFurey. Rated T for language.


**I don't own Ashes to Ashes**

**For RhosFurey, who requested this; I hope it's what you were after!**

**----**

"Bolly..." She was out. Out like a light. She looked bloody awful, he noted. If this was what she looked like in the mornings he supposed he should be glad he'd never stayed the night... but then again, the circumstance of being thoroughly shagged as opposed to having a sodding great hole in your stomach was probably much more preferable, and less likely to result in loss of blood... Stupid great hole.

"Bols..." She really, really did need to wake up now... for a few reasons, really, and he'd explain them all when she decided to snap out of it because right now, right here, if a nurse came in and found him he was worse than dead... Restraining order his ass! Like they could keep him away from her; he was her DCI for Christ's sake!

"Bolly!" The nurses were bustling around outside... if they came in, he reasoned, he could claim he got lost, or that he really was just making sure she was ok... or, he supposed, thinking about it, he could probably fit himself under her bed quickly enough, then all he'd have to do would be bide his time and wait for her to wake up...

"BOLS!" It wasn't just the nurses he was worried about now... she really couldn't hear him, could she? She wasn't responding, she wasn't even registering his voice... could he really have killed her? Shit. Was he a bloody cop-killer? Oh Christ... _Cop-killer... Cop-killer... Cop-killer_... it rang in his ears and he panicked, heart pounding as his eyes flickered from her face to the door, to the heart monitor... It was still going, but what happened when it stopped? He couldn't live with the truth that, if she died, it was his fault... _Cop-killer... Cop-killer... Cop-killer_... Why couldn't he shut it out? His breathing was pained and he leant forwards, closer to her, listening for any sign of life before speaking to her in desperation.

"Listen, I don't know if you can hear me, Bols..." But he prayed she could, because if she couldn't, then what did he do? He'd look a bloody gooseberry stood here nattering away to the woman he allegedly just tried to kill, wouldn't he? They'd probably think he was threatening her or something... bloody nurses. He always hated hospitals...

_Cop-killer... _He wanted it to stop...

"... the nurses are gunna be back in a minute..." A minute, thirty seconds, a moment... Bloody hell, why was it that when he needed to talk fast he just stood here like a lemon with a dunce hat on? Any other day he'd have quipped at her to get her knickers off her head and spurted out joke after joke after joke and got his message across, but no, now he was bloody stunted for words and any second they might storm in here and call the cops... Bloody hell, he _WAS _the cops!

_Cop-killer_... He _needed_ it to stop...

"I need you to wake up!" Need, want, it was all the same really... but how did he wake her up? Sam would've known... he was always on about bloody comas, and music and talking and bollucks but he never thought to tell Gene how to wake the twonk up again!

_Cop-killer..._ It wouldn't go away...

"How about if I... I... I'll give you a slap... that help?" He reached out hesitantly, looking about to check for nurses and lightly hitting her arm. No... nothing... It'd look bloody brilliant if he whacked her one around the face and a nurse walked in though wouldn't it? He made a face and swatted her foot, quite hard. Nothing. Jesus. Why wasn't she this unresponsive when he made a quip about psychiatry?

_Cop-killer... _If she woke up, he'd swear to get psychology and psychiatry or whatever poncy tosh it was right every time... as long as she woke up...

"Look... they think that I shot you..." Thought? They bloody knew! But he hadn't meant to, had he? He'd been shooting for Jeanette... Alex had told him to do it! He wouldn't have risked it otherwise, but she'd told him to "do it!" and if he hadn't she'd have only yelled at him later anyway...

_Cop-killer... _But he hadn't killed her...

"I mean... I _did_ shoot you..." God, suave and silver-tongued he'd told her once... he was a bumbling, babbling mess and all he was doing was repeating himself; she already knew he'd shot her, because she was bloody there, which was why he needed her, which was why she had to wake up, which was why he had to keep bloody talking until she opened those damned gorgeous eyes again...

_Cop-killer... _He couldn't be responsible for not seeing those eyes again...

"... but they think I _shot _you!" Oh Jesus, he was relying on bloody intonation to get his point across... because shot and _shot _were so different, weren't they? Because while she was in a bloody coma and halfway to dead, she really _cared_ about whether the bullet was fired with intent or not, didn't she?

_Cop-killer... _But everyone else would care... everyone else would think he'd meant to do it...

"They're after me, Bollykegs!" He could hear the shake in his voice, the desperation, the vulnerability, the brink between hysteria and normality... she had to hear him... she had to... because she had to wake up...oh Christ, she had to wake up. They were after him; they'd skin his hide and string him up by his balls at this rate. And it was only her that could help... his Bolly... Bolly... who he had suspended, and disregarded and abandoned... as if she'd want to help him! Oh God, what had he done?

_Cop-killer... _But he hadn't killed her! He hadn't and he couldn't!

"I am out on a bloody limb here!" He growled, trying to gain back some of his normal ardour because, even if she couldn't hear him, he didn't want to have to remember the fact that he'd fallen into a bloody mess and got scared without his mental Bollykegs... did he really need her that badly? Did he actually depend on her that much? And the horrifying realisation was that he did.

_Cop-killer... _But he hadn't killed her. Because if he'd wanted to kill her, he wouldn't have thought he'd miss her...

"I need you to wake up..." he started softly, trying to show her, to tell her... oh he wanted to tell her. Need didn't even scratch the surface... what was he meant to do if she didn't wake up? How was he going to face Chris and Ray and Shaz? Would he even get the chance to face them before they shoved him off to jail? Did he even want to face them at all? He wouldn't be able to face himself if she died... He wouldn't be able to face anything... and if she didn't wake up but she didn't die, would that be any better? No... Because it wasn't the fact she'd be dead that was bothering him, so much as the fact he wouldn't be able to talk to her again, wouldn't be able to tell her how thoroughly annoying and pointlessly attractive and ridiculously intelligent she was... and though admittedly her sleeping was better than him being in jail, he didn't think that either way he'd be able to escape the honest truth that he'd miss her...

_Cop-killer..._But cop-killers wouldn't miss her... so he couldn't have meant to do it... they'd believe that... they had to believe that...

"Come on!" He snapped loudly, leaning forwards on the bed as he spoke, hoping that if he got nearer she'd suddenly snap awake and slap him and tell him to keep at a respectable distance...

_Cop-killer... _But if she woke up he could prove that he wasn't a killer at all...

"Snap out of that coma, Bolly!" He wanted to beg her, but he was terrified that might give her a heart attack, because the Gene Genie didn't _do _begging, and given the circumstances it wouldn't exactly be favourable for him to add another Gene-induced injury to Alex's record. So he snapped, and he was aggressive, and he was everything he knew she didn't like because if he got her riled enough, if he pissed her off excessively enough, she'd wake up and tell him to learn some manners and take a bloody sensitivity course for visiting hospital patients... And then he'd be able to grab her and hold her and shake her and screw at her till the ceiling came down for scaring him like that, and for disobeying orders, and for telling him to do something so stupid...

_Cop-killer... _No. She'd tell him off, and they'd both agree he wasn't a cop killer... never could be... not him...

"Bolly!" It sounded so bloody simple when he thought of it like that... he'd just tell her off, tell her to get better and that he'd see her in work on Monday and everything would be dandy and wonderful... but she still wasn't waking up. She wasn't responding and the nurses were just outside...

_Cop-killer..._

"BOLLY!" His panic was at fever pitch and she just had to wake up, because he was terrified, and he was scared, and he didn't care how many times she'd ply him with alcohol and tease him about it later, just so long as she woke up now...

_Cop-killer... _

"BOLLY!" Or now...

_Cop-killer..._

"BOLLY!" Or now...

_Cop-killer... _

"BOLLY!" It had to be now...

_Cop-killer..._

"BOLLY!" Or even now...

_Cop-killer... _

"Bolly?" And though he meant it as a yell, it came out as a whispered question, a plea that fell from his lips unbidden... and still her eyes stayed close. She didn't move. She didn't make a noise. She didn't yell at him. She didn't reach for him. She didn't register anything he said... and then the nurses came in and he was pulled away from her by two security guards, her name leaving his lips again and again, rising in panic again...

_Cop-killer... _

_Cop-killer... _

_Cop-killer_...

"Bolly! BOLLY! **BOLLY**!"

---

Alex Drake screamed as the face of Gene Hunt stared down at her from all angles, his voice ringing in her ears like the executioners drum; she was meant to be home, and there he was, begging her to come back to him in his own strange way, the way that tugged at her heartstrings and made her want to cry into his shoulder...

She wanted Molly.

She wanted Gene.

She wanted to sleep.

They both needed her awake.


End file.
